The Ralph Waldo Emerson Journals Digital Archive Volume 6

202 Pages·2006·1.39 MB·English

by  Richard Geldard

The Ralph Waldo Emerson Journals Digital Archive
Volume 6
[
From the 1904-14 Edition, Edward Emerson, General Editor]
presented by
The Ralph Waldo Emerson Institute and RWE.org
Board of Directors
James Manley, Chairman and Webmaster
Alexander Forbes Emerson, Vice-Chairman
Richard G. Geldard, PhD, Secretary, Archive Editor
Susan Imholz, PhD, Treasurer
Barbara Soloway
David Beardsley

All Rights Reserved
In Cooperation with Lightning Source, Inc.
© Copyright Ralph Waldo Emerson Institute, 2006
The Digital Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson
An Introduction
Welcome to the Digital Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, an archive provided by The
Ralph Waldo Emerson Institute for the use and convenience of interested students of the life and
works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The source of these digital Journals is the ten-volume Edward
Emerson edition, originally published in Boston by Houghton Mifflin from 1904 through 1914, and
comprising over 5,000 pages of material.
We learn in the Introduction to Volume 1 that Emerson’s son Edward was asked in 1902 by
Houghton Mifflin for permission to publish the Complete Journals. The Emerson family, now
represented by The Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association, gave permission, and Edward,
with support and assistance from his nephew Waldo Emerson Forbes, undertook the task of
selecting material from the 230 manuscripts that make up the collection. We in turn thank the
Memorial Association for their support in making these digitized journals available to interested
scholars and serious readers of the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The subsequent ten-volume edition of the Journals as originally published by Houghton
Mifflin represents Edward Emerson’s personal editing of the entire corpus of hand-written journals
now housed at the Houghton Rare Book Library of Harvard University. Edward’s cautionary
editing left some material unpublished, as befitted a son, a citizen of Concord, and the taste of
Nineteenth Century New England. In other words, some material deemed too personal or offensive
to some was edited out.

Subsequently, starting in 1960, the Belknap Press of Harvard University began its own
authoritative edition of the Journals, which was completed with Volume XVI in 1982, in time for the
Centennial of Emerson’s death. This edition (hereafter cited as the JMN) includes all of Emerson’s
journal entries, plus detailed notes and commentary. It should be noted, therefore, that users of this
Digital Journal Archive should always consult the JMN to authenticate material gleaned from the
digital files before publishing journal material. It is unfortunate that Harvard University Press has
consistently refused to relinquish the Digital Rights to the Journals, nor does it have any intention
of digitizing the JMN in the near future. However, most libraries in America have the JMN on their
shelves and many of the volumes are still for sale from the Press, although they are very expensive.
The main advantages of the Digital Journal Archive over the printed volumes are the search
and/or find features available in Acrobat Reader. Users can search for names, dates, places, and,
most important, words and ideas in a relative instant. Emerson used his journals as his “savings
bank,” as he called them, to record and then use thoughts and facts for later use in essays, lectures
and sermons. Therefore, we often find the seed of an entire essay in the journals, but we also find
more private candid remarks and personal observations which did not find their way into the
Complete Works. In all, the Journals are a fascinating and valuable record of a lifetime of
inspiration and insight.
Users will note that the formatting of the Journals mirrors the printed texts as closely as
possible, maintaining pagination as well as Emerson’s original spelling and abbreviations. We have
chosen not to use the traditional (sic) designation whenever a variant spelling occurs, thinking that
such editing is intrusive. In the case of foreign words and passages, we have not provided
translation, except where Edward Emerson does. Users who wish to have such translations should
consult the JMN.
Richard G Geldard, PhD,
General Editor
January, 2006
([email protected])
The Ralph Waldo Emerson Journals Digital Archive - Volume 6
CONTENTS
JOURNAL XXXII
(Continued)
1841
(From Journals E, G, H, and J)
Nantasket. Temperance in love of Beauty. The old game, the One Fact ; Being and organizing.
Impressions ; art. Sense and Spirit. The Church's office and benefit to the people ; self-respect.
Cities like shells. Mirrors. Leaving morals at home. Theories, Whig and Spiritualist : Affirmative.
Plain dealing. Real travel. Domestication. Facts ; first or last, Man must conquer Things ; a man's
tidings. Sea-shore rhymes. Community-living. Inventions or moral force. Persons light the way. Rich
; rich to help ? Grandeur in common folk ; human relation. Composure. Trust the Prompter. The
passer-by. Tropes. Destiny and toleration. The Age ; mysticisms. Our earth-fellows. The eternal
man. Osman and success. Sky. Ideal. Advancing God. Optimates. Writing. Steady light. Superlative.
Scale. Measure ; golden mean Genius unsettles all. Selection. Portableness. Be disposed to believe
; cavil easy. Humoring insanities. Quarrels. Unity. The child's Idealism. The nobly constant. The
swordsman of debate. The brave reformer or
vi CONTENTS
penitent ; heart above intellect. Desert. Robin says grace. Beauty found in work or worship. Love's
paradox. Character ; usage hardens ; keep human. The born public man. Landor ; joy of letters ; their
help to man. Service. Vantage ground. Black and white art. Children's directness. Whitewashing.
Concord Fight. Classmates meeting ; their progress ; no disguises. Thought borrowed or kindred.
Face and head. Mood and dress. Tropes and Transmigration. Reading and writing. The cow speaks.
Guest or friend. Pedantry ; districts of thought. Sam- uel Hoar. Bacon. Burns. Lotus-eaters. Boston
routine. The Moment is all. Wild type of man. Dan- dies of moral sentiment. Boys' fancies. Ellery
Channing. Our authors. Poet. Osman goes a-berrying. Heavenborn' s results. Osman ; autobiograph-
ical ; vision..............................................................................................................................3-50
Property; Labor. Jones Very. Transcendentalists. (Rev. T. T. Stone.) Dr. Ripley's death; rear-guard
of the Puritans ; generosity and limitations ; transparent, harmonious life. Scale of temperament.
Humility ; acquiescence ; susceptibility. School to teach Whigs Idealism. The New Spirit fated. The
pine wood. Boston's bill-of-fare. Our Age living, the Creator's latest work, the generation
unconscious. The game. Experience and Idea the twins ; the revolution. No-money morality. Fichte.
Woman unsphered. Father Taylor on insults. The world and opinions. The Poet and his house.
Exaggeration. Whigs admit a sick world. Walden's visitors. Merchant more cramped than negro.
Knowing how to be rich. Wild
CONTENTS vii
stock in Nations. Kinds of corn. G. W. Tyler ; his prowess. Temperance elegant. Inaptitude. De
Clifford and Pericles and Aspasia teach behavior. Self-seekers' Nemesis. Friendship in communities.
Deep natures have latitude. Real gentility. Mrs. Ripley's eager scholarship. Two or three persons.
The marriage institution ; woman's ideal place. Writing ; autobiographical. Emerson, Thoreau,
Alcott. Poetry to come ; now too conscious ; should sweep away the poet ; the instinct. Sky and
earth. The man in black ; the Swedenborgian. Indirection. Nature's symbolism. Talk with Margaret
Fuller. Stories illustrating the times. The startled German. Shakspeare as metaphysician. Editors and
Webster. The Soul's two directions ; does Love reconcile these ? Good courage. Exclusives. The
Champion. Riches a meter. Speeches and protocols also in God's scheme. Artists' models. The great
Harlequin. Man and expression in books. Elizabeth Hoar, the sister. Life's repetitions grateful.
Genius. Hope. My book. Life's sum. Daguerreotype. Margaret Fuller. Tone ; Whiggery is secondary,
timid. Fanny Elssler's dancing is new expression ; the moral. Effect of music. Webster ; the change.
Water. Good expression rare. Insanities. Right aristocracy ; infernal infantry of Fashion. The
Moment in writing ; its relief. The unrecognized great. The opening firmament. Jesus at a club ?
Two doors to high life. Fashion. Inhumanity and geniality in company. Margaret Fuller's unsettled
rank. Trade and holiness. Unfinished literary work. The Transcen-
viii CONTENTS
dental Movement. Permanent nobility. Reading helpful in two ways. Prescribers. Life in Boston, in
two acts. War of property and masses. Sitting for a daguerreotype.................................. 51-100
Garrison thunders for Peace ; the wrong way ; take man as he is, and give a better way. Society hates
unmaskers. The Divinity School. Fight Slavery on a high plane. The Webster boys. Untrained
American writing. Our contemporaries. Conscience. Reform is elegance. Aunt Mary. Bitterness
talks itself out. Thought immature not spirit. Basis of ideals. Advanced arithmetic transcendental.
Village explains world ; greatness near. Daguerre's guess. The Composer needs the underparts also.
Youth of Nature. The three wants. The acquiescent attitude. Heed the hints and miracles. The
resplendent day. The man contrasted with his works. Shelley. A test. Soldiers. Inspiration must make
its own way. Skepticism. Heroes of sickness. Dandies of moral sentiment. Time conquerable. Poet
must work a miracle. Workers and their critics. New thought out of ruins of old. America lost in her
area. Men magnetizable. Great causes belittled by converts ; need long perspective. Wonder before
genius. Strength wasted in denial. Nature ignores our language. Heart fears no uncovering to the
better and wiser. Beauty in world of thought. Originality. Miracle of Poetry, God, from commonest
materials. Self-help. Anti-Transcendentalists, their reasons. Believe in your work. Affirmative. The
writings of Ancient world sacred. Man still re. turns to the old words. Our base of granite. The
CONTENTS ix
Property question Love only can solve. Hospitality to thought. Real men. The dream. Edith's birth.
Course on The Times. Robin Hood's foes and friends. Jones Very's admissions and objections.
Writing by God's grace. Do or tell. Contritions and faults. Our help from woman. The rude reformer
posed. The affirmative ever good ; Whigs, Protestants ; Raphael, Shakspeare, affirm. Theorists more
formidable than Conservative. Osman. Napoleon. Circumstance. The coming perfected man. Aerial
roots. Great writings and great life. Reputation in Universe. A word. The man inopportune, yet
delighting in others. Matter. A person. Necessity or ethics. Spontaneous men. Objections. The man,
not the class. Oversubtlety. Kepler. Leibnitz. What helps man ? The upright man. Nature and man.
Herrick ; the poet's lure. Reading.................................................................................. 101-146
JOURNAL XXXIII
1842
(From Journals J, K, and N)
The happy household. Death of Waldo ; the vacancy, relics ; his happy life and friends ; his sayings.
Mass in writing ; advancing steps ; perspective. Mass in friendship. Boy and violets. Seeing without
eyes. Facts as horses. Proclus. Bores. Jonson and Tennyson. Optical life. Ignore the declaimer, speak
the thought. Proclus, magnificent suggestion. Lady turned church-member. Accept not persons.
Experi-
CONTENTS
mental writing; Truth. Character. The deserted house. Charles Newcomb. New York lectures and
acquaintances. The Dial problem. Surface-life. Brothers ; William Emerson. Memory of Waldo ;
the mystery. The scholar's voice heard afar. Colton's Tecumseh. Hell and Heaven ; your attitude. The
Bible. Clare's poem. Albert Brisbane. Alcott's English project ; Alcott described at length ; greatness
and faults. Dreams. Edward Palmer ; his No-Money gospel. Neighbor Edmund Hosmcr. Conditional
population. Prune doctrines for truth. Swedenborg a poet. Junius Alcott's paper. Gypsies and
Apostles. The babe a divine conductor. Swedenborg an interpreter of Nature ; the beautiful
Necessity; a dangerous teacher. Lesson of All in Each. Education, from Plato. Your gift apparent
to those it helps. Verses, The Poet. Christ's victory ; Character over Fate ; victory follows defeat.
Idolatry the backward, Victory the forward eye. Poets' message. Lesson of works as symbols. The
boys and the passenger. Shakspeare and Swedenborg. The woman-part in the mind. Lord Nu-gent's
justice. Farmers' alliance coming. Dewey's Plants in Massachusetts; charm of names. Swedenborg's
hopeless Hebraism ; gates of thought are found late. Coleman's Agriculture in Massachusetts. Infant
composure. Meeting of gentlemen ; country culture. Mrs. Rebecca Black. Insight ; private energy
best. Proclus ; intellect communicable. Quotation. Corrective wisdom. Imperfect relation. The
Platonist region................................................................................................................ 150–200
Edmund Hosmer's victories. Necessity farms. Rural
CONTENTS xi
proverbs. Beauty flits. The fields correct us. Both continence and abandonment. Grandfather and
baby. Beware magnificent souls. Let languages lie awhile. Self and God. Strong-winged Proclus.
Goodness and greatness should win their way. Boldness the presence of the Spirit. Doctor James
Jackson; the scale of patients. A reading man. Surface prevails; Molecular inter-space. Evening and
morning. A projected neighborhood. The Calvinist by temperament ; the over contrite and the
hopeful. Catbird poetry. Milton and others on Marriage. Leigh Hunt's " Abou ben Ad-hem." Affirm;
denial gets nowhere. Talent's comforts. A Village Athenaeum. The Man-woman. The unsuspected
star. To-day all important. What a military band can bring you. Born out of time. Shun egotism.
Intellect grows by obedience. Dew and fireflies. Choose your morning for Plato. Shelley. Charles
King Newcomb, a religious intellect; his restoring manuscript. Robert Bartlett, John Weiss. The
little daughter's victory. Do not shirk in language. The story of the scholar. A day outweighs a
Sabbath. Fate of Alcott's book. A convert to Rome congratulated. A new volume of Tennyson found
liberating. Talk with Sampson Reed on Swedenborg. Scale from Deity to Dust. Childish argument.
Three classes; Samuel Hoar; conscience. Outgrowing. Tracts of English Radicals; Carlyle ignores
them; A real Author yet worldly ; no Milton. Chaucer and Saadi. Poet's susceptibility ; religious
sentiment; yet Intellect is cheerful. Order in the Mind, Goodwill makes insight. Herbs. Rosebugs.
Genius a telescope.
xii CONTENTS
Fate. Alcott's English allies. Novel writing; Bulwcr's Zanotti, Disraeli's Vivian Grey. Shun Custom.
Work; Play. Bettina. Labor. The plantain. Concord Athcmourn. Death poetic. Lesson to ci> B K
from Concord Cattleshow. Balzac. A wrong step. Great persons independent; yet conventions a
safeguard. The village Stoic. Margaret Fuller; tendencies; autobiographical. Keys of faiths lost.
Walk with Channing ; sunsets; Nature; Swearing. Report of one on Nature; Want and Have;
Compensation. Blessed Genius. Joy needs vitality. The workers. Marston's Patrician's Daughter. Mr.
Ripley's good example with talkers. The Irish mother. Hawthorne above his writing. Ward on
women. Edmund Hosmer on Alcott; the high plane; helpers in life. Society's conventions, to face
them or fly ? Intellect puts an interval, Affection none. Marriage in Spiritual world. The tutor. The
incorrigible poet. Tennyson; Dante; Wordsworth. Imperfect friendship. The Kitten. Pseudo-sciences
mask a truth undiscovered. The writer like the sick man. Each science can explain universe. Nature
answers what Language cannot. Dear old surroundings. Blind love. The eternal craving. Gifts. Ready
wit. Sterling on Sculpture. Test questions on apples or thought. Criticism. Authors' pay. Boston
poem. Alcott in London. Keys. Men gregarious .............................................................. 201-250
Plants future men. Milnes and Carlyle. Poet and modern facts. Nature leads the boy. Alcott on
Emerson. Playing with Nature, yet may wake. Richter on women. Singing to deaf ears. White lies.
Edward Everett; his charm for youth; beauty and eloquence; professor;
CONTENTS xiii
lured by politics. Trick in conversation. Walk with Hawthorne to Harvard and visit to Shakers.
Landor; Scott ; piety; Wordsworth; Culture from Europe; travel without a call. London a magnet.
Young preachers. Coleridge at Andover. The little girls. Hosmer on farm animals. Health and rules.
Sons. Economy. Supremacy of classic authors. Divinity behind man's institutions. Steam's lift to
Boston. Bargaining. Man's one way to freedom. Doctor Channing's strength. Mourning gradual;
Reform's value appears late. La Peau d' Ane. Life's goods by the highway. Imposition. Take turns.
Words mere suggestions; beautiful facts. Spectatorship. Democrats and Whigs. Useless genius.
Infants teach cheerfulness. Underlying seriousness; the Soul's safeguards. Margaret Fuller; gypsy
talent and Custom; Rabelais. Merchants; nothing new. Thoughts on tedious visitors. Mary Rotch on
guidance of the Friends. Indian summer. Homer's value to Americans. Rabelais again. Books to read.
Society must not be overdone. God offers alternatives. Truth gives good utterance; Richter. The
human housedog. Alcott's risky imports. Letter on Doctor Channing's death; the minister and author.
Poets; Tennyson, Burns, Browning, Bailey, verse inspired and uninspired. The poor stove. Classics.
Talking on Life. Boston's hospitality. Jones Very's influence. The Greavcs Library; Charles Lane and
Henry G. Wright; Alcott. Suggestive writers; Cornelius Agrippa and Robert Burton. Basal mistake
of communities. Persons arc not ideas. Literary justice. Paracelsus. The Reformers claim they bring
all that is good in England. An incubus; their small red lion. Man's wolfish hunger; he is Nature's
Bulletin. Speaker, not topic. These helpless newcomers. Orestes Brownson's list of great Americans.
Ideal union involves independence. Rebounding Facts. Women in England. Thoreau's saying on
Man. Woman our Conscience. Prating. The Spirit detaches. New England's idealism. Relation of
man to hooks.................................................................................................................... 251-300
Books ; The few great. Dodging truth. Life's experiment worth risks. Winter Schooling. Hosmer's
honesty. Fear of starving. Cannot deal with others' facts. Henry Thoreau's verses. Time's
breast-pocket ; autobiographical. Men's changing religions yet save. Alcott describes Fruitlands
scheme ; its worldly propping condemns the dreamers ; the true strength of the Spirit. Theanor and
Amphitryon, a parable. Lethe. Persons or property ; Love can reconcile. New York Democracy.
Dickens's American Notes. Gospel of the Race, not the individual. Avarice seeks objects, Science
relation. Bancroft and Bryant. Four walls. Intuitions. Union in individualism. Fire ; symbolism. Fate
is part of a tune. Bible. Steps. Remorseless Buddhism. Question of the Demiurgus. Blue sky. Charles
Lane at the Conversation. The Poet's meals. Story of Romeo. Verses, The South Wind. Mornings.
The locomotive calls. History is striving Thought. Idealists. The world's many baits. Friends in
Boston. Life's daily surprises. The marble Hesperus. Too little affirming ; Man intermittent. The
Yankee's fatal gripe. Eves. Individual economies. The Channings. Religion gives refinement.
Electricity of Thought. Travel humiliates. Time necessary to grandeur. Country health. American
instability. Naming. Reading........................................................................................... 301-332
CONTENTS xv
JOURNAL XXXIV
1843
(From Journals Z, R, and U)
Lecturing in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Washington. The new Railroad. God's grace. The
hit. Hotels. Mrs. Siddons and Fanny Kemble. Transmigration. Good ofnovels. Poverty intelligible
; the gambler. Praise of merchants. Railway pictures. Nature's questions and views. 'Webster, his
presence, speech, rearing, faults, rules ; allowance for, lost opportunity, pure intellect, his terrors.
American polarity. Mrs. Emerson on reform-diet. Earth spirit. Asking eyes ; balanced men. Talk
and writing. The speaker's desire. Children versus Conversation. At home in the Moral. The Plague
and Fear. John Quincy Adams the fighter. No straight line. Nationality disappears in presence of
human nature. Pere Antoine of New Orleans ; General Jackson. Men cast away pearls. Debt to
Society. American democracy. Mahomet and woman. Beware a mystic in power. Leisures of the
spirit. The pit-audience in America. Brisbane. World self-sufficient ; land-hunger. Odd world; fine
women. Humiliation's gift. I and my day. Innocent swearing. The solitary Spirit. Reading German
Goethe. Channing as a poet ; his freaks. Jock and
xvi CONTENTS
Dick, a parable. Criticism ; do a new thing. Poet must heed perspective. Spread your health. The
Muse is feminine. The half-sighted philosophers. Lectures. Pride and Vanity. The English
disputants. Recognize God in persons. Margaret Fuller ; her riches of thought, generosity, elevation
heroic eloquence ; Nouvissimi Vita. Kings. Martyrs. The Dial writers. Reform must be new and
warm. Multiplication table. Woman's real state. Margaret Fuller's verses. Invention of the diamond.
Clothes-pins. Genius and talent. The incorrigible philosophers. Henry Thoreau. Acquaintance with
Montaigne. Weak reference. Brook Farm favours Impulse; Newcomb and Bradford. Poets' wine
Proclus. The Neoplatonists. Conscience must watch Intellect. Inconvertible Calvinist. The light
shining through the great. Woman; the Soul hermaphrodite ; Harriet Martineau ; Ellen Tucker.
Spring's promise. Transcendentalist and Churchman. Webster's Ambition. Drop of nectar.
Buddhism. Travel. Concord's advantages. Good will but no affinity with English
Reformers....................................................................................................................... 335-385
Alcott's criticism. Veracity. Mrs. George Ripley on New England women. Five points of Calvinism.
Carlyle in Past and Present. Natural aristocrats. The Millerite. Farm pests. Rude dispute. City of
Washington ; its poles. Aunt Mary. America seems Trade and Convention ; Women's critical eyes.
Brook Farm relations. Exacting Visitors. George Ripley and wife. A fresh manuscript. The
swamp-flowers. Edward Lowell and Charles Emerson. Blue Zenith. Carlyle on English woes, could
he redress
CONTENTS xvii
them? Brook Farm's difficulties. The pines by the house. The Ideal. Railroads allies of
Transcendentalists. The honest garden. Wait, pallid America. Work on. Young Ball's visit. Modern
antiques. The Demiurgus. Carlyle ; Humboldt. The opaline world ; the blessed river. The farmer.
Doctors. Stars. Man sheds grief. Everett's service. Confucius. Life and Death good. The web of
Property. Woman's position Normal. Luther's two styles. Abortive reforms. God even in Man, a
loadstone. Elements and animals. Daily bread. Persons in our life; qualities. Upward and downward
look. Flying-machines. Mountains. Carlyle's manlike Style. The Novel writer. Sky. No Death.
Heralds suffer. Charles Lane described. The Poet's lot in life blessed. Talk with Hawthorne.
Excellence high and low. Pride. Fairy gifts. Bunker Hill Monument dedication : Webster's oration.
Visit to Brook Farm. Hierarchy. Daguerre. Dante's Vita Nueva. The Three Dimensions. The fringes
of life. Transmigration. Visit to. Fruitlands. Household help. Morning. Channing's humours. The
office of the clergy. Cows. Montaigne. A coming Bible. Duty. Readiness ; the moral. The bench
and tools. Visit to Plymouth ; its people, landscape, flowers. The Wyman case tried in Concord.
Webster and Choate. judge Allen on juries. Raleigh. Webster socially ; his force and standing.
Nature; is Man rising or falling? ......................................................................................386-435
Sentences from the Philosophers. Barriers to Friends. Fear and ignorance. The She-King quoted.
Persons melt. Influence of Jesus and good men. Fourier.
xviii CONTENTS
Deference; low sympathy. Irresponsibility ; conscience in streaks. Thoreau's paradoxes. Churchman
and Thinker. Charm of primitive poems ; Hawthorne on Brook Farm. Farmer's indirect good deeds.
The Visit. Brook Farm pleasant. The drifting immigrants. Wealth's quiet strength. Bcckford's
Vathek. Domestic servants. Men representative. Demand of Beauty. All life has poetry. Our public
Men underlings. Annual Spirits. Laborer's Manly grace. Gardens, romantic spots ; Nature's larger
beauty. Test of face. O'Connell. Poor life. Prophecy for railroads. Reformers' weakness and merit.
What can you do ? Education of counting-room. Tendency and men. Charles Lane on Costume,
Diet, Clergy, Animals. Fruitlands limitations. The poet and the stars. Events seen freshly. Honor
the reformer — get commonsense. Montaigne's Journey to Italy. Chandler Robbins. Henry Ware.
Webster. Plato. George B. Emerson on trees.. Second Advent hymns. Hardness. Various
Aristocracies ; inevitable. Chinese reformers ; Mencius ; Gonzalo's Kingdom. Mrs. Emerson on
Fruitlands. Nature covers aristocracy ; her puzzles. The one straight line. Saadi ; quotations, God's
approbation of the poet ; his death. Wordsworth. Tennyson. One person writes the books. Party
reveals public men. Goethe's Helena. Ben Jonson's Fame. Love; the large view of it, and of Life.
Poet a gambler. Charming on writers. The child rules. Aunt Mary's letters and influence. William
Emerson of Concord; autobiographical. Greatness not leaning on riches. Explosive free-thinking.
Thomas Taylor de-
CONTENTS xix
fines Christianity. The painter and the realist. Sympathy but partial. Alcott the wandering Emperor.
Pioneer American writers. Children sacred. Virtue and condition. Genius is tyrannical. The
dinner-bell. Sect and Spirit. Reforms crude writing ; Wings or boots ? Married women in
Communities. Country and city ; the Sun's call. Plotinus on Light. Others' endorsement. To-day.
The Common sense. The soul's flow and ebb. Thought's quantity and depth ; life one and eternal.
Handel's Messiah. Grim morals. Spheres. Tears. Socialist Convention. English Literary History.
Trade's triumphs. Kant. Belief and unbelief. Intellect. Reading.................................... 436-484
JOURNAL XXXV
1844
(From Journals U and V)
Lyceum lectures lack aspiration. Anniversary of Waldo's death. The Inward Eye. Magnetism.
Reform's pitfall. Charlatanism. Nature's willfulness. The Dead. Daguerreotype of Soul. Brook
Farm's new life. Ellery Channing. Conversion of Intellect. Wish for eloquence. Oriental type of
thought. The World's Secret. Dreams. Thoreau's " Inspiration." Annexation of Texas. Individuals
? Books that stir but do not feed. Thoreau's secret of life. Otherism. Intellect alone a devil. Our
descent ? Personal criticism. Closing the Old Second Church. Consuelo as Devil's advocate.
Symmetry. " Chaldxan Oracles." Magnetism
xx CONTENTS
in sexes. Preacher and Doer. Debile American scholars. Allston's strength. Our authors
thin-blooded. Shakers sacrifice culture. Duty in the actual world. Trade's reprieve. The Fruitlands
tragedy and Alcott. The cool beggar. The Past ever new. Paradox of friendship. The recluse.
Writing. Rich character. Moving useless. Character in legislators; Adams compared with Webster.
God ever new. Herbert's verses. Taylor's '' novel and solitary path"; the Platonists. Beckford's Italy
and Spain. Ole Bull's performance. Burke and Schiller believers. Boston's offerings. Deference and
Room. Real economy. Classifying words. Goethe's breadth and felicity. Woman and marriage.
Thoreau in word and act. Our free thought. Fourier. Alluring forest. Thinkers, and livers of their
thought. Jesus and Immortality. Behmen's excellence. Life's recipe. Woman's musical character;
her pathos. Hearing music. Death natural and sweet. Poor or brave life. The Transcendental
movement, conquering Ideas. Conservatism. Samuel Hoar. Second visit to Shakers; their dance and
religion. Long life implied. Humility. Cant phrases. The Dandies. Novels; Disraeli Government.
Real sentiment. The stage-driver. The new railroad. The redeeming Daimons. Science as a barrier.
Prophecy of railroad tunnels.
The gardener. Swedenborg's vice. Life, vigor and performance .....................................485-530
Mass-Meetings. Boys. Self-justifying ; Demiurgus. Geology. Evolution; reason and love; the black
man advances. Novels; George Sand, Manzoni. Duties of Abolitionist. Second Essays sent to
friends. Senti-
CONTENTS xxi
ments, make poet. Said. Solitude. Topics. Slaveholder and cringing cotton manufacturer; honor to
Garrison. Bonaparte and the chapel bell. Wendell Phillips; his strong fact-basis for eloquence.
Hope. Mirabeau. Jesus as a theme to-day. Alcott underprizes labor. Goethe's strength; our debt to
him. Sarah Alden Ripley; her gifts, impulses, scholarship and virtues. Nature out-
wits the writer. Reading................................................................................................. 531-550